This Time in the Month of February
by Romipen
Summary: For a greater portion of the month of February, Dean drinks a lot. -- Season5 Pre-episode 5x14 "My Bloody Valentine".


**DISCLAIMER**: Supernatural © Eric Kripke & CW

**A/N**: It's 3 am and I had a silly thought.

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For a greater portion of the month of February, Dean drinks a lot. Dean drinks a lot to begin with, but for this particular time of this particular month he drinks _a_ _lot_. Call it a way of coping against the niggling reminders that he is a person incapable of holding onto long lasting, meaningful relationships – outside of his Apocalypse Rebel Alliance – or a sure fire way into landing some sweet ass for one wild night in the month of over stimulated sexual hype.

Whatever you can call it, Dean isn't sure whether he truly likes or dislikes it. In his current and demanding lifestyle, there's not really time to contemplate the pros and cons to dating, relationships, or alcoholism. He spends most of his time contemplating the pros and cons of becoming an Archangel's personal condom, about Lucifer free upon the earth searching for his baby brother, and whether or not Fate is something he can shape or something he's going to take up the ass.

There is, however, one thing Dean is certain about: his dislike of "scenting" people. Dean _hates_ the romantic spew commonly found this month regaling off on the scrumptious qualities to be found in a person's individual smell. _He smells like vanilla chai._ _She smells like strawberry cream._ It's all pure bull in his opinion. People don't smell like Strawberry Shortcake without a fat load of bottled help. Not normal people. Not the people he meets, or is sure make up 99.9% of the world's population. That's a nice frothing cup of vomit-mocha-latté for the hopeless and uneducated. The only people who can walk up to you any day of the week, in his experience, and smell like a blueberry bubble bath are: A. Girls who can offer you their amazing menu of bedside service, B. Boys who should be dancing in _The_ _Birdcage_, or C. Someone wearing Coco Chanel's new line of "Berry Beautiful".

Dean is pretty certain that most of the time he smells like sweat, blood, and booze. It's hardly romantic and he's pretty damn sure it won't be making any offers from Chanel's line. There is definitely nothing foody about the way he smells. Hell, there isn't even anything about the way that Sam smells that would be found as a name off any French dessert menu. It makes Dean snerk to think about it, but right now he is pretty certain Sam is smelling like questionable motel plumbing, the laundromat, and after shave.

Dean doesn't dislike this time of the year, regardless. Facing down the end of times, it puts into perspective the mesmerizing quality that love is in a world on the edge of annihilation. Destroyed between two factions split because they forgot what real love is. What loving a family through the sun or rain really is all about. No, Dean can't feel he dislikes a time of the year that forces you to remember to just love for the sake of loving – and no, he doesn't give a crap how Hallmark-lame that sounds because he's been drinking, like he's apt to do a lot this time of the month of February, and that's reason enough.

Though that doesn't change the fact that a lot of this month is horse shit marketing. Like scenting people. That is just pure crap. Oh, and while he's on the topic of scent, Dean's apt to point out that angels have an even fainter chance of ever being scent labeled. He knows this because unlike humans, there is nothing very earthly about celestial beings - duh. If you try looking at an angel, you bleed out your eyes from their sockets. If you try to hear an angel, you bleed out your eardrums from the sides of your head. If you try to _smell_ an angel – well, you don't accomplish much. Angels are not like Sam. Stuck in the Impala on a stakeout with one of Sam's toxic bouts leaves little in the way of denying you can not only smell Sam's sulfuric gases, but you can taste them too. That sort of smell is different entirely from the way an angel trouncing around the world in some nerdy little rumpled vessel smells.

Dean can best describe it as ethereal. He's also pretty self-accomplished in even being able to use that word in context. It's mostly due to Sam having used it to describe this or that about their angel-sidekick before, but Dean is still damn proud. Suck it, college degree. Angels, or more precisely, _Castiel_, can hardly be said to have a true smell. Dean's never actually run up and sniffed Zachariah or Michael, so he'll just stick to what he's comfortable with.

Dean is pretty sure if he could describe any smell Cas has to the best of his ability, it would suck. What Dean knows about it is that it's almost human, almost not. You walk up to Cas and think you're going to smell Jimmy Novak coming home from accountant duties, rubber shoes and stiff trench coats and maybe coffee breath, but you don't. Dean thinks sometimes he's going to walk up to Cas and smell the Holy Gates or Divinity Endless or maybe even dusty Bible, but he doesn't. It's not meteor ash or ozone burning through or lightning striking earth. What it is - is there's hardly anything there. It's a man that's an angel that's using a man as an angel.

Sometimes Dean thinks he can place it. Sometimes he remembers being high up on some mount and breathing deep and feeling that sharp clarity burn through his lungs in a way that implies of something greater out there. Sometimes he remembers the way a person can walk through a crowd and suddenly think he smells something he knows, something he almost remembers, and turn to find a scent that's vanished before he even caught the first whiff. What Dean really thinks is that it's not something you understand, because it's not from here. It's not going to be peonies budding or a fresh stream bubbling because not only are those the stupidest things he's ever heard, but that's all earthly matter, and Castiel is not, if anything, earthly matter inside that tousled-haired man.

There are times Dean thinks he can smell what may have been Jimmy, but upon reflection, Dean's not sure he's the best judge of what Jimmy may or may have smelt like. It's not like he goes breathing in the man while he sleeps. It's not like Dean thinks there's nothing there, because on a first-hand account, he knows he can smell _something_. It's just not anything he can tack with a label. So for the record on angelic business as documented by Dean Winchester, angels can trump the smut-romance card for scent labeling hands down any day. Bullshit it don't exist.

Sitting in a ratty reclining chair stained with it's-best-not-to-think-about-it marks, Dean drinks during that greater portion of the month of February. He drinks for that niggling-feeling and because tonight he's not going to get any of that sexually hyped sweet ass. He's not sure he dislikes it, though. Currently clicking away at his keyboard, Mr. Questionable-Motel-Plumbing-Laundromat-After-Shave is contently surfing the web and is nestled safe and so very far away from the Devil's luring embrace. Dean's popping more of those thrifty priced and nauseatingly sweet "be mine" candies, doing his best to ignore the Hallmark-lame micro-type and especially ignoring the "you smell like -" ones. He pauses only briefly as that almost there, almost not, sound of heavy wings displaces space itself and nerdy little angelic accountant side-kick is suddenly in the room not smelling like anything you can properly name. Dean drinks during the greater portion of February, sitting in that ratty stained recliner, and it has more to do with the people with him than niggling-feelings or sweet ass to not be had. He drinks to what he has while he has it.

"I've discovered some and I've considered it. I don't believe I smell like lemon drops."

Dean smiles.


End file.
